Priest PvE guide
Things Priests want Non-Priests to know In a party environment, especially in an instance, each person contributes to the welfare of the group and its advancement towards success; however, no character is as critical to preventing a wipe than the primary healer. If the priest can no longer heal in mid-fight, this can often lead to the wipe of an entire party, and for this reason, the priest needs to be protected at all costs. If the priest survives, other characters can be resurrected, and the instance continued fairly painlessly. Below is an edited version of the good post about this subject: A Beginner's Guide to Healing # Nothing annoys mob as much as someone healing the player they are attacking. For this reason, mob will often turn away from the tank and head straight to the healer when a healing spell is cast. When a priest draws aggro from healing the group, the closest person to the priest stops whatever they are doing and gets the aggro off of the priest ASAP. This may sound detrimental to your success as an individual combatant within the group, but the truth is that if you do not adhere to this rule, it will more than likely be your and the groups down fall. If a priest must defend and heal himself, he is NOT healing members of his party. Therefore you all die! Note: Fade can be used to take advantage of this if you have some skill in kiting. The priest heals as usual, but if the mob(s) break off the tank, let it run towards the priest. When it's near enough, the priest can Fade and send the mob running back to the tank if aggro has been properly managed. Don't try this if your aggro management is poor though. It is highly recommended to do this with some form of threat meter. # Give your priest time to refill his mana pool back up after a rough battle. If you go running ahead before you do this, you run the risk of getting the group killed, because the priest will not have enough mana built back up to handle any hairy situations that may arise from the next battle. Some priests will announce that they are refilling mana, but learn to glance at their mana bar and look to see if they are sitting (required when replenishing mana). And since the priest is replenishing mana while you collect your loot or talk to the quest giver, make sure you wait for the priest to do the same. # Give any mana potions and such to the priest as you gather them while in the group. Unless you need them more at that time for some reason, the priest will more than likely need them a lot more than anyone else in the group. # Do not split up and go different directions, or go behind walls/pillars when you can help it. This is a major bane for the priest. Priests MUST maintain line-of-sight contact in order to heal. We can not heal you if you are not with the rest of the group, in a different room somewhere getting yourself killed. The only exception to this is when you are a designated scout, such as a hunter, with the assumption that you will be resurrected by the priest should you die while scouting. # Give your priest the benefit of the doubt. Do not be demanding of them to heal you when YOU think you need it. The whole role of the priest is to heal you and the rest of the group. Trust me, they usually know exactly what they are doing. If you are running low, and they have not healed you yet, there may be some reason as to why. Look at the obvious before becoming demanding, thinking that they are not healing you on purpose for some reason. A healer who knows what to do is carefully gauging everyone's health bars, calculating heal times, heal types, and available mana. If the priest sucks, then by all means stay on his/her arse about it. But insisting on being healed when the priest has a higher priority (such as keeping the mage alive during an AoE flurry) is a good way to ensure that the priest may purposefully not heal you until you are at the brink of death. # Try and play the role that your character is supposed to play within the group. In other words, make sure the tanks are tanking, and everyone else that is drawing aggro knows how to control it by giving it back to the tanks. Obviously we will not always have that ideal group, but once you decide who is going to do what, try and stick with this, as it makes everyone's job that much easier, thereby helping your party succeed. If you wish to be something else, go kill mob on your own. Parties and instances are all about teamwork. # Do not blame a group getting wiped on the priest. It is very rarely due to the priest not doing their jobs. More than likely the reason everyone got wiped was due to something I already mentioned in this post, and had nothing to with the priests ability to perform their duties as a priest. Please look at yourself and the actual things that led up to the wipe, rather than just blindly blaming the priest for the wipe every time. This also applies to any other classes that are main healer. # When you are out running around leveling solo out there, and see a priest running around alone, invite them to join with you to help them level. They are secretly hoping you will. I only say this because I do not think most people realize just how hard it is to level a priest solo. We actually need to group with as many people as possible, as often as possible. This is because we not only need to practice doing our job in group environments on the way up, but we also most definitely need the help to level ourselves as well. I promise you that when you bring a priest along with you, you will not only make them very happy, but you will be able to level twice as fast just having one with you. # Pay attention to your pets, and do not always expect the priest to be able to watch them for you. Your pets can inadvertently draw a lot of unwanted aggro if you do not pay close attention to them within group environments. We will always give higher priority to the "Players" in the group, before even looking at your pets. It is not a bad idea to let the priest know that your pet needs a heal from time to time, if you notice that the priest is neglecting your pet. Just try to be polite whenever you ask. # A priest does not have enough mana to heal everyone in the party. We can probably keep the main tank and one off-tank alive without draining mana too quickly, but if we're suddenly spamming the heal spells because soft-armored characters are drawing aggro, we'll run out fast and everyone will die. Not only that, all the healing will probably cause some of the mobs to aggro us, and you definitely don't want that. # If a Shackle pops up on an undead mob you just started fighting, leave it alone. Chances are the priest will try to shackle it again to make the fight easier for everyone unless someone has put a DoT on it or some melee class/pet is determined to show it love. # For the sake of a holy-specced priest, learn what a Lightwell is and how to use it! Don't keep clicking on it to see what the pretty, floating bowl does - you are wasting precious charges that might be used to save a wipe. Things Non-Priests want Priests to know # When you draw aggro, and the group is right there with you, DO NOT MOVE AROUND! Moving makes it take that much more time to get the aggro off of you. DO NOT MOVE and they can take it off of you pretty easily. Every time you take even one step, the aggro will follow you first, then hit you, then have a chance to be taken off you by another group member. The only reason to move when you do draw aggro, is to make sure the rest of the group knows that you have aggro, and that they need to take it off of you. At this point, just get as close to the group members as possible, so they do not have to move to far to get them off of you. # When you're supposed to be healer, playing with shadow talents makes people nervous. Stay out of Shadowform. # Stay kinda close to the group, but not so close that you draw the aggro before the tanks and people who should be. This way nothing can come from behind and surprise you, therefore causing you to have to run into the group to get it off of you. Remember that you will aggro mobs with 20% less threat if you are in melee range. http://www.wowwiki.com/Formulas:Aggro#Drawing_Aggro # If there is a warlock in the group, have them give you a soulstone orb, so you can rez yourself after a wipe. This way you can still rez everyone in the group if everyone dies, or better yet, tell him to give the stone to a Pally / Shaman. They have a good chance of surviving if a respawn or patrol catches them before they can rez the group, while a priest specced on healing will definitely have a harder time bringing down the same mob. Also, ask your warlock how they like to use life tap. Most will tell you not to worry about their health unless it's below sixty percent or you can actually see what is damaging them. Warlocks like to fire off a few life taps and then bandage to quickly bring ourselves back to full health. If a priest heals us instead of allowing us to bandage ourselves, it just moves the mana deficiency away from the one character best equipped to deal with being oom. # Many warlocks prefer 'renew' over a straight heal because of the dynamics of Life tap. With renew, a warlock has the chance to have near-full life and mana. # Some priests seem to think that the shield is not worth using, since it has lower mana efficiency than a heal, and creates extra threat. The rest of us, however, think of your shield almost the same as a free healing potion - and being shielded gives us a huge confidence boost in the priest's ability to get a heal off in time. Also, PW:S keeps mages from being interrupted if they pull aggro while casting a channeled AOE. # Paladins, shamans, and druids in bear/cat form REALLY need you to learn to use the /oom ("out of mana") command. They need to stop what they are doing to cast a healing spell on you. Otherwise, they will be concentrating on fighting mob. General tips Rogue Most of the time when a Rogue gains aggro, a single PW:S and a Renew will give him/her time to feint and let the Warrior regain aggro. If the Rogue maintains aggro, be ready to throw in a couple of Flash Heals. A good Rogue will usually vanish if they are unable to lose aggro, thereby clearing their aggro completely and allowing them to get in another opening move. Some rogues draw aggro anywhere. After healing them a few times, mobs will eventually jump to you. Your best bet is let this rogue die a few times and give them some instructions. Warrior When grouped with a Warrior, Flash Heals are not as useful. Most of the time it is worth it to wait the extra time to cast a Heal or Greater Heal when they are at 25 - 40% health. Timing is important, so begin casting around 50% health. If they are getting a lucky string of dodges/parries/blocks, don't feel bad cancelling the spell and starting again. If you are fighting something with burst damage, such as Mortal Strikes, Flash Heals may be necessary. It is sometimes wise to PW:S the Warrior before a pull. It will give them several seconds of gaining agro before you need to heal them, so you are less likely to take aggro the first time you heal. However, it usually best to consult with the Warrior beforehand, as they will not gain rage from being struck by the enemy mob, and as such many Warriors prefer to have the extra rage to use aggro gaining abilities. The warrior has no way to ditch aggro, self-heal or otherwise escape damage while in combat, so it is up to the healers to keep the warrior healthy. Doing this successfully will result in happy warriors, the converse will unsurprisingly result in players who are less than pleased with their choice of traveling companions. If you are in a group, the tanking warrior is the most important person in the group after the priest. Do not let them die. If you start running low on mana, then focus on the tank even if it means sacrificing another group member. Priest When grouped with another Priest decide who will be the primary healer and who will Mind Control enemies. In hard battles it can be useful to have one Priest heal half of the group and the other heal the rest. Warlock When you group with a Warlock the tactics are very similar to grouping with a mage. Power Word: Shield and Flash Heals are the most used spells. Make sure to get a soulstone from the Warlock in case you wipe. This is very useful in instances. If your soulstone fades, or is getting low on its timer before a boss fight, alert the raid. If there is a second warlock, they will most likely throw up a second stone, or stone another rezzer. Don't expect to get the soulstone if there is a competent paladin who is not off-tanking. They're heartier and are less likely to die outside of a wipe. Never ever ever combat rez when you are soulstoned. exception to this rule would be in end-game raids where your raid leader might ask you use your soulstone if you die. Warlocks have an incredibly efficient small radius AOE spell called Hellfire. At final rank this does around 215 damage per second to anything within 8 yards or so for 15 seconds. The catch is that it also does that damage to the warlock. Shield your lock and drop a flash heal once the shield runs out and that should take care of the critters. Warlocks are the most mana-efficient dps for a priest in a group. Warlocks get a spell called Lifetap that converts health into mana. If you notice a warlock getting low on mana, toss a renew on them so they can lifetap a few times then continue their nuking. To speed things up between pulls, tell the warlock to lifetap to full mana then cast a greater heal on them. Around 1k mana to you is almost a full mana bar to many warlocks. In large raids you can make a group with 1 shadow priest and 4 warlocks. The combination of Vampiric Embrace with Lifetap grants almost infinite mana to the warlocks. Shadow Vulnerability adds 15% damage to any warlock in the raid. Misery will cause your target to take up to 5% more magical damage. The warlock's Curse of Shadow will cause your shadow spells to be increased in damage and have a lesser chance of being resisted. All in all, warlocks and shadow priests work -excellent- together. At a boss (i.e. a long fight in one place) you will find Warlocks are very appreciative of a Lightwell. It allows them to life tap whenever the please and the large range makes it very easy to drop at their feet. Mage When grouped with a Mage Power Word: Shield is critical. When a Mage gets attacked, cast it on them and they can cast without interuption. A Flash Heal is very useful as well because they don't have much health. Make sure to get them the heals quickly or they will die. If your group is about to make a pull that requires the mage to cast AoE spells, give them a PW:S before the pull and chain cast Flash Heal when it fades. A mage usually needs constant healing in an AoE situation as they are effectively taking several mobs at a time, which is a bad thing when you wear cloth! Druid When you are with a druid who is tanking in bear form. A very nice way to start a fight is to PW:S them and have them start the fight with their Hurricane ability. This gives them fantastic agro on all of the mobs they are fighting, and does a considerable amount of initial damage. After they switch to bear form you should Renew as needed and Greater Heal if HP drops below about 30%. If you are getting low on mana and would like an Innervate, don't forget to save enough to PW:S them before they shift to caster form. This prevents them from losing a ton of health before they can get back to Bearform. Hunter When with a Hunter, you need to give him Flash Heals and Renews when necessary. It is also a good idea to Renew the pet. However, hunters have Feign Death so you don't have to worry too much about them in parties. The only difficulty is that they can Feign aggro back to a priest after you have faded. You are then at the mercy of your group to pull the mob off of you. Paladin Paladins are like warriors and they do better with a Heal or Greater Heal every once and a while. Remember to behave yourself aggro-wise if the Paladin is tanking for some reason. They haven't got a third of the aggro-stealing tricks of a Warrior or Feral Druid, so give them a bit to gain aggro. Also remember to talk to the Paladin before they start their tanking run. Some prefer to do their own heals as healing at 60% increased aggro is much more threat than they can generate through attacks. Also make sure the paladin updates a Blessing of Salvation if needed to reduce threat from your healing spells. Shaman Shamans can self-heal. Most Shamans will heal themselves so the Priest won't get extra aggro. Coordinate with the Shaman/s in your group to see if they will be a secondary healer or if they want to be pure dps. If you're working with a caster shaman (especially), consider shielding them if they get attacked. That way they can either heal themselves better or continue casting unhindered until the tank gets aggro again or simply nuke the mob with lightning bolts to take it down much faster. Ask your shaman if they would prefer a heal or a shield. Category:Priests